People interface with a DBMS. They operate in various roles requiring various levels of training. The assumed user role strongly influenced the design of DBMS. Two primary user roles account for the dichotomy. Much can be understood about DBMS functions and operation by examining the basic user roles served.

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People may be direct or indirect DBMS user. Direct users use the DBMS facilities directly. They may be online or offline when interacting with the DBMS. An offline user would fill out a coding form and submit it to someone else in a making a request of the DBMS. For an online user, the response from the systems may be immediate or deferred.

Indirect User are passive towards the systems or go through a direct user for Example, a bank teller who look up a customer’s account balance in a daily printed listing of all accounts balances is an indirect user. Similarly, customers who call the utility company concerning an apparent error on their monthly statement would be indirect users of the systems. They would talk to a clerk having direct access to the system. This text concerns direct DBMS users primarily.

A person acting in a user role is sometime a direct end user of the data in the database at other times the person may be responding to a request for data from another person. Often a request for data from top management initiates a chain of activities which use facilities at various level of sophistication. More difficult requests required knowledge people, using more generalized and more flexible facilities in the DBMS.

A user is distinct from an administrative role. A person acting in an administration role. A person acting in administrative role acts as an agent for a community of users. Such persons may be direct users of the DBMS, but their primary concern for the data is custodial. Administrative functions include planning for the future use of the database providing, maintaining, and enchasing the facilities of the DBMS, establishing and executing control and authorization procedures to maintain database integrity and continuous smooth operation.

Shareability with Different Users: When data resources are mechanized and stored in a database, different users any want to use the data in carrying out their duties. Shareability means providing facilities to different types of users to access the same database.

End user versus system developer: end user of a DBMS use the result of their efforts with the DBMS, directly. They are consumers of the results of interacting with the DBMS. A person is also considered an end user, from the viewpoint of the DBMS, if they are acting for an indirect end user.

A system developer is a person who is using the facilities of the DBMS to build or add facilities or stored procedures which can subsequently be invoked by an end user. Of course, it is possible for the same person to build and store some procedure which they invoke later for themselves. This is one person playing two roles and points up the importance of distinguishing role from people who fill those role. System developers are programmers since they write programs consisting of sequences of commands stored for later execution. They concentrate on developing presto red procedures to meet needs of other users.

With advent of desktop microcomputers, the distinction between end user and system developer becomes fuzzier. The user of a DBMS in this environment is inherently online. They operate the computer. They will perform some ad hoc operations with the DBMS on the stored data. As they become more experienced in the use of the DBMS, they will want to be able to prestore frequently used sequences of operation in the DBMS. Now they become a system developer.

DBMS user roles

The user roles form a hierarchy. There are six user roles and nine ways they are related to each other. The differentiating factors are not all independent nor absolute. Some of the factors do not apply with the casual user placed before the parametric user since the result of a dialogue with casual be a request expressed in the DBMS command language.

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